Life In Four Colors Special Event Coverage
Studio Akumakaze Spends Halloween at Main Street Comics and Games
Trick or Treat. Beggar's Night. All Hollow's Eve. Halloween. Call it what you will. To me and many just like me it's one of the most exciting times of the year. Americans spend billions of dollars on Halloween making it second only to Christmas as far as celebrating here in the states. And we did our fair share of celebrating yesterday at the store as BJay and Tyler from Studio Akumakaze spent the afternoon at Main Street Comics and Games hanging out with Scott and I and some of favorite customers and friends.
That's Scott's youngest son, Derrien, in the picture above. He usually does not look quite that spooky.
BJay and Tyler were joined by Dustin Carson and up and coming, quasi-talented artist and Akumakaze brother in arms Brian Latimer. BJay stayed busy most of the afternoon as he was giving out free copies of Scrap #1 to all the customers that dropped by and signing the book as well. There was those who liked the free copy of #1 so much that they immediately bought a copy of issue #2 (which I am sure was part of the plan) and Cliffhangers (another book produced by Studio Akumakaze) also received it's fair share of attention
Scott and I stayed busy as well as we passed out free comics, artwork, and candy to anybody who dropped by in costume.
This was the first group of trick or treaters to drop by. I believe that some (if not all) of these children belong to one of our most loyal customers at the store...a great guy by the name of Sean Pence. We gave Sean some goodies as well. As a matter of fact the Crow print that Scott is holding in this picture actually belongs to Sean...he just wanted it in the picture. That print was illustrated by good friend and recent Studio Akumakaze recruit Chris Metzger. By far the most popular piece of art we were passing out yesterday, there was only one copy of it left when we closed the store.
Other artwork we were passing out included Bloodrayne prints signed by writer Chad Lambert and various prints promoting Dustin Carson's No Gods series with art by another Studio Akumakaze member Chris Hoskins. A print by Eric Adams was also very popular. No Gods also saw some sales yesterday. It's a good thing Dustin always has a set or two in his car whenever he takes a road trip!
Another costumer (Joe) and his daughter.
Katie, who works across the street from us over at the Family Video store. Some of you may remember Katie as Catwoman from Champion City Comic Con.
Jef Price co-founder of the Necessary Cool website, fellow member of Twilight Star Studios and creator of Flatworld hanging out with Tyler. There's a very interesting back story about Jef's decision to come in costume that maybe he will cover in his coverage of yesterday's event over at www.necessarycool.com
Just as a future plug. That Hotshot poster on the store's now famous wall of work down by local artists was dropped of just this past Wednesday afternoon by Hotshot creator and artist Mike Watson in preparation for the Free Style Komics book signing at the store Saturday November 14th. Mike and Hotshot writer Victor Dandridge along with new Freestyle artist Nikki will be in attendance.
Also seen hanging on the wall in the background is a picture of the Black Widow drawn by Studio Akumakaze artist Jacob Newell. Jacob is working with BJay on the current lead story for Cliffhangers as well as doing the interior art for Seven Sisters also written by BJay. Jacob will continue doing art for the lead story of Cliffhangers working with me on Duality after "Natural Selection" concludes in Cliffhangers #3. Unfortunately Jacob wasn't able to make the Studio Akumakaze signing yesterday (slacker).
Local writer and artist Tim Hagans darts by the shop to partake in all the Halloween goodness that was going on.
Tim's better half, Melissa checks out the simply amazing artwork of Brian Latimer with store owner Scott Riley and Dustin Carson.
Jef, Brain, BJay, and Tyler.
Crowd starts to pick up and actually stayed pretty busy from about 3:00-5:00. Believe it or not Jamal, another writer from Studio Akumakaze, was also here but as hard as it may seem (Jamal's a big guy) he gets lost in this photo. I think he's around the corner checking out the video game selection.
Dustin Carson and Chris Metzger talking over details about a new project the two of them are working on together. Dustin brought along the first ten pages of the script for Chris and Metzger seemed very excited as he looked it over.
Trust me, when these two guys start to talk about "future projects" nothing good can come of it. You know this shot looks like it could be the promo shot for a new NCIS television series. Look out Chris O' Donnell and L.L. Cool J....G-Man and BJay are taking over.
Look who dropped by to make sure we still had the "Rusty Collins Comic Collection". A comic collection to sell your soul for. That's right. That is a shameless plug for "Tales From The Long Box: Collective Soul". A six page comic written by me and illustrated by Scott that appeared in the Champion City program book. What? What do you mean you haven't read it yet?!? That's gonna make this guy very un-happy. (By the way this guy is really just Matt....manager of Family Video).
BUT if you really have not had a chance to check out Tales From The Long Box, don't worry because the UN-EDITED version of the story appears in Wicked Tales from Wild Wolf Entertainment...scheduled to be released in just a few short weeks!
Features work by Studio Akumakaze members and associates BJay Johnson, Chris Martin, Dustin Carson, Jacob Newell, Frank Raynor, and Chris Metzger. Also has work from other Comic Related family members including Ron Fortier, Sean Collins, Dave Arhar, Aaron Smith, Chad Strohl, Raichal Gladman, and Lisa Moore.
Plus work from the Brother's Church of the local Twilight Star Studios in Springfield Ohio.
That Dustin guy hanging out with Frank Raynor. Frank had called me earlier in the day and said when he came by he would be in a "monkey suit". I was expecting something a little bit more hairy.
There was this one guy that did show up I wasn't very happy to see. I couldn't keep my mouth shut and one thing led to another and the next thing you know...."Katana for the win!"
This "Deadpool" is actually Scott's oldest son, Dakota and this photo was the brainchild of Jef Price.. I'm glad he thought of it. Everybody had a blast with this.
Luckily there's a "Second Hand Store" right around the corner.
Hope you all had a great Halloween....and until next time....see you in the funny papers.
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men). Bill also pens a column for Comic Related and will be doing a mix of regional convention coverage.
blog comments powered by Disqus